These pictures don’t show “growing up,” Bhagavad-gita says, but “changing bodies.” At every moment our body becomes infinitesimally different from the previous moment. The cumulative effect of these innumerable changes is dramatic (I’d love to take pictures of Priya and her friends again in 2021, 2031…).
The more time that passes, the more dramatic the body’s changes, but our essential spiritual nature, the soul, doesn’t change. And that soul, the Bhagavad-gita says, is who we are.

Yours truly, 1951 and (right) 2011
Sharanagati’s passing seasons repeatedly remind me of life’s inevitable cyclical nature: the gray, short days of winter are brightened by the certainty of a lush spring to follow. In the same way, life’s wintery parts will surely be followed by a welcoming spring. My goal is to be grateful for each day as it comes.
From the Bhagavad-gita: “All of us existed as individuals in the past, we exist as individuals now, and in the future we shall continue to exist as individuals. We were existing, we are existing and we will exist. Only the body experiences birth, death, disease and old age, not the soul within. “